wolfiered23 replied to your post “jorrynoftheroundtable replied to your photoset “Knowing what’s going...”
Can we compare this to Hajime and Nagito? Cause I’m pretty sure Hajime spent his FTEs following up on what Nagito tells him and Shuichi decidedly did NOT
[He does indeed]; right from the start of the final, he asks for Nagito to continue his story, at which point he pretty much lays out everything that’s left. Though he claims he cited a book to gain empathy, Hajime still presses him for more, even though he’s super rattled at the thought he might have been lied to. It’s at this point that he leaves (well, tries to aha), but what’s clear is he made the effort that he went up to Nagito for, in the first place. What’s more, is he asks about how he would handle another situation. About his thought process.
The main difference of course, is Shuichi tends to assume he can figure out a thought process - intent, way of reasoning etc - rather than actually ask about what the other thinks. Unlike Hajime, Shuichi fails to follow up on any of the odd things from the previous events much of the time, or even ask for anything else. Heck, he doesn’t even speculate on what the hidden truth within Ouma’s words was, and this is among the final things Hajime thinks about with Nagito. He even suggests he’d like to see what he might do next! None of that with Shuichi towards Ouma! What’s worse is the ‘I feel I can understand him better’ is decidedly perfunctory with the expression he has, and the after-event text.
It also does seem to give the impression that Shuichi can’t handle this kind of thing very well on his own. He’s easy to lead off track, both in FTEs and ingame, he shuts down and backs off even in his own thoughts (I’ll grant that this is in part due to his sheltering) though when something is in his vested interest, or he gets a cue, he stands a better chance of staying engaged in follow ups.